Operations in an electronic reprographic system (printer) can, from time to time, be interrupted. Such an interruption can be the result of a printing fault, hardware or software faults, paper jams, a user created intentional interruption, etc.
Conventionally, an electronic reprographic system (printer) may perform various routines in response to an interruption or print fault.
For example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,299, a printer job recovery for use in an electronic reprographic system includes the detection of faults affecting printer operation. When such a fault is detected, fault recovery is carried out and operation continues.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,299 discloses that during fault recover, it is determined whether the print jobs are incomplete. If the print jobs are not incomplete, recovery is skipped and normal operation continues. However, if it is determined that there are incomplete jobs, it is determined whether there are any partially complete jobs. Upon determination that there are partially complete jobs, the system recovers the oldest partially complete job and the cycle continues until it is determined that there are no partially complete jobs. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,299 is hereby incorporated by reference.
In another example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,128,772, when handling copy sensitive jobs in an electronic reprographic printing system, a unique sheet routing operation can be utilized to ensure job integrity when printing copy sensitive jobs using multiset scheduling. A bin fill pattern is used which is unidirectional and begins at the same bin for each sheet of the set. The job recovery for copy sensitive jobs includes purging and remaking sets and partial sets to a greater extent for copy sensitive jobs than that required for non-copy sensitive jobs. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 5,128,772 is hereby incorporated by reference.
For example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,449, a fault clearance and recovery operation in an electronic reprographic system stores in memory clearance and recovery instructions for specific system faults, monitors the system for fault occurrence and displays the stored instructions upon detection of a fault occurrence. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,449 is hereby incorporated by reference.
In another example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,617, a reproduction apparatus has an operator control panel for providing operator interface for controlling the reproduction apparatus. The operator control panel includes a display for displaying a sequence of graphics at periodic intervals to assist an operator in clearing jams. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,617 is hereby incorporated by reference.
For example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,118, an image reproduction system includes an image generator for generating images for reproduction, memory in which a set of images can be stored, a printing system for printing images stored in the memory on support material. In response to a malfunction in the image generator, a control unit prints the images of complete sets stored in the memory at the time of the malfunction and prevents the printing of the images stored in the memory at the time of the malfunction if these images belong to incomplete sets stored in the memory which were being generated at the time of the image generator malfunction. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,118 is hereby incorporated by reference.
In another example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,495, a method diagnosis a printer problem includes correlating a wide range of printer data types with suggested solutions. Printer diagnostic data, which may include usage information and printer status information, is collected over a period of time and parsed into individual components. Rules are compared with each component, and the comparison is correlated with a set of solutions to determine the appropriate solution. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,495 is hereby incorporated by reference.
For example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,913,273, a printing apparatus includes processing elements, such as printing elements, a media path positioned to supply sheets of media to the printing elements, a media storage device maintaining the sheets of media and providing the sheets of media to the media path, a processor device operatively connected to the media storage device and the media path, and a graphic user interface operatively connected to the processor device. The processor device monitors operations of the media storage device and the media path to detect media path faults. The processor device evaluates the media path faults to determine the severity of the media path faults. The processor device performs the bypass operation based on a combination of at least one of the media path faults exceeding a previously established severity level and the user-selectable bypass option on the graphic user interface being selected. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 8,913,273 is hereby incorporated by reference.
The various conventional interruption or print fault recovery processes discussed above fail to provide an appropriate interruption or fault recovery process for situations involving the printing of sensitive or “secured” information.
For example, when a printer encounters a problem such that a print job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, has been released for marking (printing) but the process cannot commence or be completed due to a printer interruption or printer fault, a user may have approached the faulted printer and found that the printer is in a fault mode. Realizing that the printer is in a fault mode, the user may then walk away from the printer, with an understanding that the print job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, will not print.
However, conventional fault recovery procedures enable the printer to recover from the fault without regard for the possibly that the interrupted print jobs may contain sensitive or “secured” information, which should not be printed. If the user walks away thinking the print job will not print and the printer utilizes a conventional fault recovery process causing the print job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, to be printed, the result will be the printed job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, is left unsecured in an output tray or bin.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a printer fault or interruption recovery system or process that prevents the printing a print job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, without the user having an awareness of or control of the post fault/interruption printing operation so as to prevent the printing of the print job, containing sensitive or “secured” information, being left unsecured in an output tray or bin.